Happy New Year!

I hope you've had a wonderful Christmas (or whatever other festival you might be celebrating at this time), and that you'll have, and enjoy, the best of everything in 2008.

To start the year there is a little gift for you. As even though the blog has only been going for a few weeks there are already quite a lot of entries, which means that if you want to read more than the most recent ones you have to do quite a bit of trawling through the archives, I thought you'd maybe find it handy to have an e-book version that you can read straight through without any cumbersome and time-consuming navigation.

You can download the book from here.

Hope you enjoy it!

The Yellow Rose Of Winter

You can say it's down to global warming if you like (though thanks to the frosts we've been having this week it doesn't feel much like it), but just two streets away from here, behind a low wall and with some savage-looking thorns on either side of it, there blooms one single yellow rose.

No, it's not the "last rose of summer" sort of flower - you know the kind of thing, where it's been blooming for a while and it's just to say managing to hang on to its half-way withered petals.

This one is a real, live, brand-new, very healthy-looking, fragrant yellow rose.

I've been watching the bud for a few days now, not really daring to believe that such a flower could possibly be going to emerge in the middle of December, especially after all the frost... but it's defied the elements, and there it stands in all its beauty and its inspiration.

It seems to lift the spirits of everyone who sees it. People stop to admire it, and wave to the lady who hovers just inside the window, anxiously watching as if she's scared that someone's going to take it home with them (yes, I admit the thought had crossed my mind - but no, I wouldn't really).

People who've seen the rose already smile indulgently at those who are staring at it, awestruck, for the first time. Total strangers greet each other as they marvel at the unexpected sight. This rose is causing a real stir in the neighborhood.

So, where's the useful lesson in all this?

Well, the key lies in just what the rose is doing. Regardless of what other roses do, like blooming in the summertime, this one is simply doing what comes naturally - to it.

No-one's ever told it that it that it's not supposed to flower in December. No-one's conditioned it to believe it should feel guilty that it's bloomed too late for this year's summer and it's way ahead of next year's.

Regardless of the calendar, that rose has simply felt the urge to flower, and, to the delight of all the neighborhood, has vigorously and uninhibitedly gone ahead and done it.

It's simply followed the inner prompting to do all that it can do, and to be all that it can be... and that's exactly what we're all supposed to do.

You own talent doesn't need to be as unexpected and as startling as a rose that flowers in December. It can be something so commonplace that you see it only as the equivalent as one of the many daisies in the grass in springtime.

It doesn't matter in the slightest what it is... as long as it's your own, and you develop it and use it to the best of your ability, in some direction that your deepest inner prompting urges you.

If shyness and inhibition are preventing you from doing that, you can find the easiest, most pleasant way to conquer them by checking out Project Your Real, Dynamic Self at Supreme-Success.com.

The unexpected blossoming of just one yellow rose has brightened the lives of all those who have seen it. If you, too, will only be all you can be and do all you can do, you, also, will enrich the lives of many people - and the most important one will be your own.

Better Than A Feast (Part 2)

If you're looking for success in internet marketing, here's another example of how important it is to strike a balance between what you want and what the people on your mailing list will stand for.

In a recent posting I wrote of my annoyance at being mailed by the same person 6 times in one weekend. Didn't someone once say, "You ain't seen nothing yet"? Well, I obviously hadn't.

I've now received an e-mail from another marketer whose list I'd joined because he promised me he'd never mail me more than once a week. That was fine with me.

Unfortunately, despite his promise, it clearly wasn't fine with him. His latest e-mail boasted that he'd been doing an internet marketing course, and he'd learned a great new marketing technique.

All he had to do to multiply his earnings beyond recognition, he said, was mail his list, not once a week, as promised, and not even once a day, but several times a day. As if to prove it, there were three other mails from him downloading while I read the first one.

He may not have been aware of it, but sending more mails than you've promised is not regarded as giving extra value - it's actually classed as spam.

You have to have consent to send commercial mails to anyone, and if they've given you consent to mail them only once a week, or whatever limit you've assured them will be all you'll send, you don't have their consent to mail them any more than that.

If you make that kind of promise, then you have to keep it. If you decide you want to send more mail, you have to ask them first.

The best way is to keep your weekly mailing list, and simply ask the people on it if they'd also like to join one where they'll get more frequent mails from you - if you offer something useful in exchange some will agree, and at least the others aren't going to unsubscribe.

Keeping your promise is about a whole lot more than simply staying on the right side of the anti-spam laws, though, important though that is. It's about persuading people on your list to trust you... because if they don't, they aren't going to buy from you. Not ever.

If they can't rely on you to keep your word on something as simple as how often you're going to e-mail them, why would they believe you when you tell them how great your products are, or that you'll honor any guarantees you give them... and if they can't trust you not to abuse their e-mail address, how are they going to trust you with their credit card details?

No matter what any course might try to tell you, success in internet marketing is much less about techniques than it is about two very basic things - consideration for the people that you deal with, and some simple common sense.

If you expect to be able to trust the people that you buy from, remember that your customers expect the same from you. If you don't want your inbox flooded out with mail, remember no-one else does, either.

If the advice you're given is to take some course of action that you wouldn't want someone else to do to you, you can be sure that people will react badly if you go ahead with it... but if you wish that other people would treat you as well as you look after your customers and the people on your mailing list, you're heading for Supreme Success. Go for it!

Taking Back Control

I admit it - there is no excuse for what I've done today. I know perfectly well the thing to do is keep my mind on good things, things I want to happen, things that energize me and empower me, and I take a lot of pleasure out of helping other people do the same... and what have I been doing all day?

Well, pretty nearly nothing. Nothing that's gone right, at any rate. The only thing I've done successfully from morning until night is make a mess of everything I've touched - and if that sounds uncharacteristically negative, that's just the point.

I dropped my guard and let myself be swamped by negative thoughts and feelings, and I've been reaping the rewards in terms of damaged concentration, mistakes, annoyance and wasted effort without once stopping to take the most important step of all - a step backwards to put things into perspective.

The story actually starts a couple of days ago, when I worked ridiculously late to finish something I was doing as a favor to a friend. Being overtired yesterday wasn't a good start... then the friend took the favor totally for granted, and I admit I wasn't pleased.

It shouldn't have mattered. I'd put a lot of effort into what I'd done, and I was pleased with the outcome. It's the fact that I'd completed the task successfully and with enjoyment that should have counted - but I'd expected to be complimented on it, or at least be thanked, or something.

I should have remembered that other people's appreciation (or the lack of it!) isn't what's important. If you rely on other people to make you feel good about yourself, even for a moment, the one thing you can almost always guarantee is disappointment.

What I should have done, of course, was to be honest with myself about the real reason for my annoyance (hurt pride, I'm sorry to admit!), then let it go, refocus on the things I'm aiming to achieve, and take the next step forward.

What I did was let my anger fester. I slept badly, and got up even more tired this morning... and the inevitable happened. Hard as I might try, I couldn't do a single thing and get it right.

My e-mails took what seemed like twice forever to download. I tried another e-mail program, and it was even slower. I'd meant to do a blog post, but I couldn't get the page to open. I tried to access Google, and I couldn't. The computer seemed to have no power, and was running ridiculously slowly. I ran a spyware check, and it took three times longer than it should have done.

By this time I was getting paranoid. What was it that I'd read about a sudden drastic falling-off in computer performance meaning it had been hijacked as a net-bot, and was sending tons of spam without my knowledge?

Fortunately at this point I began to realize that maybe it wasn't the computer that was running amok so much as my own thoughts and feelings. I took a deep breath, and went and made myself a cup of coffee.

When I came back and sat down again at the computer, I idly clicked on a piece of work I do (or rather, the computer does) for a University science project. It's one of those things where people volunteer a bit of their computer's spare capacity to help to process scientific data. It runs in the background, and doesn't affect whatever work you're doing.

On second thoughts, make that "it doesn't usually affect whatever work you're doing" - because with that one mouse-click the whole problem was resolved. The project was collecting its next batch of work, which usually takes only a few minutes... but this particular batch of work was enormous, and the download was taking several hours.

Not surprisingly, everything else that I'd been trying to do online was not responding as I'd thought it would - but all I had to do was wait till it had finished, and the computer would start working normally again.

It was an exact parallel with what had been going on in my own mind. Just as I'd been doing with my friend, I'd expected the computer to behave in ways that I'd mapped out for it, and was completely wrong-footed when it didn't.

Well, at least it's been a useful lesson. Even when you know the power your thoughts and feelings have to replicate themselves in what happens in your outside world, and you're determined to keep them positive and energizing, there's always a temptation to let yourself be swept away by a powerful emotion that gets out of your control.

Don't beat yourself up over it - just let your annoyance, worry, fear, anxiety or whatever else is knocking you off-balance, go.

Once you reach a calmer frame of mind, ask yourself what, is anything, is real about that emotion (in my friend's case, for example, absolutely nothing - in the computer's, a performance problem that needed to be identified and dealt with).

If there's something that you need to do to put any genuine difficulty right, go do it - if there's not, just take a break for a few minutes so you can refocus. Clear your mind completely, and let it stay blank for a few moments while you take several deep breaths.

Now go back to whatever you were doing, and see how much easier it is!

If you find it hard to keep your thoughts and feelings under your control, or you've never realized that it's even possible, you might like to check out Free Your Life From Stress, or fill your mind with the empowering and energizing track called "Above The Pairs Of Opposites", which is part of the Supreme Success system.

Your mind is under your control - but, as I've proved today, you have to reassert your authority over it from time to time!

Untying The Elephant

I read recently that elephants used in logging work (in some terrain they're apparently the only way of moving heavy logs around) are kept tethered by a single rope around one leg when they're not working. They can move around, but the rope apparently keeps them from wandering away from the camp.

Frankly, it doesn't sound like much of an existence... but the strange thing is, they don't need to put up with it. An elephant weighs tons, and there's just no rope on earth could hold one that decided to break free.

Why don't they, then?

Because they've been conditioned to accept the rope since they were babies. When they're first tethered they're small and weak enough that straining against it does no good. They haven't got the strength to break it.

This is where the elephants' famous memories work against them. They never forget trying to break the rope and failing to do so. Because they couldn't break the rope when they were babies, they assume they just can't break it - ever.

That's why one single rope can hold a fully-grown elephant... because the elephant will never, ever, even think of breaking it.

What's even worse - most people do the same. Most people who are told as children that they aren't very good at something will believe that, and as grown-ups they never try again.

It might just be that they needed practice, or to be taught a better way of doing it than a child would know. Sometimes they might be shy, and need encouragement. Maybe it's just been that a parent was tired or irritable, stressed, or simply in a hurry, and hasn't had the patience to watch or listen properly.

Whatever the reason, words like "You're hopeless!" or "You'll never get it right!" or being laughed at by someone whose good opinion matters to you can all too easily turn into the equivalent of the rope around the elephant's ankle - a shackle that will never be recognized as the weak and powerless thing it really is, but which will hog-tie the person that it's been inflicted on... for life.

Fortunately, humans have the capacity to change their thinking. If you can learn to recognize the outdated limitations that have so far held you back from where you want to be, you can break them just as surely as an elephant could break a rope.

What would you really love to do that you're not doing now? Professionally or personally, a career, an interest or a hobby - it doesn't matter. What unfulfilled ambition have you buried in your mind because someone once sneered at you and told you that you never would achieve it?

It's important that you're absolutely honest with yourself here. Being discouraged or derided as a child is a painful and embarrassing experience, and many people cope with it by burying the whole incident, along with their ambition, in the deepest recess of their mind so that they don't ever have to feel that way again.

Well, you don't have to feel that way again. You don't need to relive the bad experience - just bring out that ambition, and take another look at it.

Why did you want it - and do you still?

If it's simply something that you've honestly outgrown, that's fine. You've taken the sting out of a bad memory, and you don't have to concern yourself with it any more.

Before you consign it to oblivion, though, ask yourself one more question about it.

In a perfect world, if you could be quite sure that going for it wouldn't get you hurt again, and that you really have the talent that would help you to achieve it, and you couldn't fail, and people would applaud your skill, not laugh at you for lack of it, would you still want to walk away from it?

Isn't there a tiny voice inside that's asking wistfully, "What if...?"

If so, remember that almost any skill can be learned by almost anyone who really wants to master it... and that your happiness comes not from what you get from life, but from the creative energy that you put into doing something that you love.

Remember, too, that people who (usually unintentionally) inflict that kind of inhibition on a child are often less than knowledgeable critics.

A parent who says you can't sing may not have the faintest clue about the kind of music that you want to sing.

The teacher who derided your computer skills because you forgot to use the spell-check on a homework assignment may not even be aware of what you can do with spreadsheets, or how you can design a story-board for potentially money-spinning games.

Siblings tease because they're siblings - that's just how they are.

Most people who mock others' dreams have never even tried to reach their own.

Don't let the rope that someone's disapproval tied around your ankle when you were a child prevent you, like the elephant, from going where you really want to go.

Visit Supreme-Success.com instead, and find out how you can achieve ambitions that you'd thought were lost to you forever.

Sphere Of Influence

Last night's TV movie was The Sphere, a sci-fi thriller starring Dustin Hoffman, Sharon Stone and Samuel L. Jackson. It's the story of a group of scientists who enter a strange underwater sphere and find that they've been given the power to create anything they think about.

The problem is that all they can think about is what they fear the most... so all the things they fear the most are exactly what they get.

Frustratingly, having got themselves into a situation where their lives are being threatened by all the fears of all of them, it doesn't occur to any of these scientific minds that if they can manifest the things they fear, they can surely learn to manifest the things they really want, as well... like getting back to safety, fast.

Even though Dustin Hoffman's character says at one point, "Imagine what you will, and you can have it," not a single one of them ever imagines anything at all they actually want, but only what they don't want.

In fact, they do this to such an extent that when they do eventually make it back to safety the only thing they want to do with this great power they've been given... is to forget that they've been given it.

Because they can manifest anything they want, they simply manifest the way they thought and felt before they'd gone into the sphere, and they immediately forget their power.

"What we've manifested," says Dustin Hoffman's character when he suggests the idea, "is the worst of us, not the best of us. We aren't ready for it."

Well, the simple answer to that is - get ready for it, because whether you want it or not, that power is something you've already got. You were born with it, and whether you choose to use it wisely or to forget it, you can not get rid of it.

The story may be fiction, but the idea behind it's solid fact.

The sphere is your own mind. It gives you the power to achieve the things you want - whatever you focus on is what you get.

If you choose to direct your attention to the things you really want from life, then sooner or later they will come to you - you'll find the ideas, the inspiration, the motivation and the energy to take you there.

If you prefer to keep your mind on what you don't want, or the things you fear, guess what? Your mind will cause you to act in ways that bring those undesired outcomes to you.

Either way, you'll get the things you focus on in great abundance... so it's pretty obvious which choice to make.

You can't opt out. If you don't deliberately direct your attention and your energy, then other people will direct them for you.

If you don't control your own mind, others will (the advertising industry is all the evidence you need of that!).

Make a conscious and deliberate decision, right here, right now, that in future you, and only you, determine what goes on in your own sphere of influence - your mind.

It'll make all the difference to what goes on in your whole life, too.

If you need some help to overcome any idea that you're not good enough, or any other kind of negative thinking that might get in the way of making sure your mind is under your direct control (and no-one else's!), visit Supreme-Success.com to find out how.

Saving The Cheerleader

So, the first series of Heroes has finished on UK TV. I don't want to spoil the ending for anyone who's not yet seen it (it's being shown again not once but twice before the week is out, so that could still be quite a lot of people), but there's a character from last week's episode that's worth a mention, even if you've never watched the show.

A little girl called Molly Walker has a very strange ability – she can track the whereabouts of any person in the world just by thinking about them.

To Mohinder Suresh, who wants to find one particular person before he can set off an explosion that would obliterate New York, that makes her the most important person on the planet – but to Noah Bennett, whose main concern is to prevent his adopted daughter (the cheerleader) from being found by those who would put her life at risk, little Molly is an enemy who's threatening his family's safety.

One person's hero is another's villain. A situation that scares one person might exhilarate another. A job that one employee thinks of as security might suffocate a colleague. An amount of money that might seem quite small to some sounds like a fortune to a lot of others.

It all depends on what the person or the situation represents to them.

It's just the same with what you want from life. It's no good someone telling you that a particular career, or to reach a certain level in it, is a great thing to go after.

If it's genuinely right for you, you won't need anyone to tell you so. If it isn't something that you really want, however far you get in it is not success - it's only an attempt to gain approval.

The problem with looking for approval is that no matter how much of it you get, it's never quite enough, because there's no amount of approval from anyone in the world except yourself that can reassure you that the path you're on is right – for you.

Every picture can be seen in more than one light. Every coin has more than just one side... or, as my father put it when someone asked him whether he's the sort of person who would describe a glass as being half-empty or half-full, replied, "That depends."

"Depends on what?" was the next question, and he smiled ironically.

"On whether I enjoy what's in it!"

Make sure your life is full of what you want, and what you most enjoy.

You can find out how by visiting Supreme-Success.com.